The beginning, it´s a very good place to start

A rough start to be sure. We were delayed quite a bit getting into Newark and missed our flight to Köln by quite a bit. After getting into Newark around 9pm, we waited in a line to get a hotel and food vouchers from Continental. The hotel was decent, and Tuesday morning we headed back to Newark International Airport to get more vouchers because we were now booked on a flight on the 28th. After getting standby tickets for Tuesday, we headed in the city (NYC) for a quick 1 hr visit.

We managed to see Times Square, and the Empire State building, and definitely got the feel for NY life. It was great!

Tuesday at 6:45 we left for Germany, and once we arrived looked around a bit of Köln before heading to Cochem. We´ve decided to skip France, as it was going to make the trip too busy and quite a bit more expensive. We´re staying a second night here in Cochem tonight, and we really enjoyed hiking around the city and countryside today.

Tomorrow another Schlo§ (fortress or castle) and then into Koblenz. We´ll write again soon. See the pictures at the link below, we´ve added a few.

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/rcjohnson42/

Relaxing and re-packing

Well, we're in MO relaxing. visiting family before we leave on Monday at 1pm. Still just a few things left to do, getting the final packing done, and picking up just a few last minute items. I jst sent the spam email to all our friends and family, and so I have to update this so that people expect reasonalby updated content. Nothing like social pressure to get someone to do something.

The biggest thing left to do is to capture our itenerary. so for those who haven't already heard it here it is. Of course, I could have just sent this link instead:

6/27 - Arrive in Cologne, Germany 8 am - Stay in Cochem, Germany
6/28 - 6/30 - Visiting France (somewhere)
7/1 - St Goar, Germany
7/2 - Bacharach, Germany
7/3 - 7/5 - Florence, Italy
7/6 - Venice, Italy
7/8 - Vienna, Austria
7/9 - Salzburg, Austria
7/10 - Fussen, Germany
7/11 - Somewhere around Wurzburg, Germany
7/12 - Cologne, Germany
7/13 - Depart for the US at 10am

Countdown...

We leave in T-minus 60 hours and counting for a whilwind tour of central North America (home visiting friends and family) and central Europe (seeing the sights, maybe a friend). Not much to say except that this will likely devolve temporarily into my personal reflections on vacation, Europe, and rejuvenation, and of course: photos.

I was challenged by a friend the other day to discover just what God intended to show me while on this three week vacation, and I've decided to accept his challenge. I don't know exactly what the weeks have in store for me, but I'm excited to find out.

On a more techie note, we've bought a few new toys lately. First was Kassy's Canon 20D. A hefty investment for sure, but a very worthwhile purchase as it has brought her hours of enoyment already, and we haven't even left the country yet. Next was a Samsung external DVD burner, with LightScribe. Very fun, very handy, especially for the photo-bug. Finally, today we bought an external hard drive with a built in memory card reader, so that while we're in Europe Kassy can shoot gigs upon gigs of photos.

All of this was basically to say, watch this space for more news and photos from our trip.